The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has witnessed a massive spike in exploits in 2026, incurring more than $775M loss. In this respect, private keys have emerged as a leading factor in the respective incidents. As per the data from Top 7 Crypto, KelpDAO, Drift, and Step Finance are the top among the DeFi exploits of the year. The other names on the list take into account, $Truebit, Resolv, Rhea Finance, Grinex, SwapNet, YieldBlox, and Saga.
Hackers Steal $21M From DeFi Platforms in 1 Month
KelpDAO Leads 2026’s DeFi Exploits with Staggering $292M Loss in Bridge Exploit
KelpDAO is the leading among 2026’s top DeFi exploits. Particularly, the DeFi platform has lost a staggering $292M in the attack. The attacker targeted the KelpDAO $rsETH bridge and drained this amount. Subsequently, the Drift protocol witnessed the 2nd leading DeFi exploit of the year. Hence, the hacker executed an oracle manipulation strategy along with the inclusion of a fake token to drain up to $285M.
Apart from that, 2026 also witnessed the exploit of Step Finance. Specifically, the attacker compromised the private keys of the DeFi platform. This resulted in the loss of nearly $40M. In addition to this, Truebit is the 4th top DeFi entity when it comes to the key exploits of 2026. Thus, the company experienced a loss of almost $26.4M due to a smart contract bug.
Subsequently, the 5th position is taken by the DeFi entity Resolv. The exploiter compromised the platform’s AWS KMS Key to take away $25M. Then comes Rhea Finance as the 6th top DeFi exploit of this year. It recorded a $18.4M loss led by oracle manipulation and fake token. Additionally, the next name among these exploits is Grinex. The DeFi firm underwent and Exit Scam or insider drain, losing a cumulative $13.7M.
Saga Bottoms List with $7M Lost in Bridge Hack
Moving on, Top 7 ICO’s list of 2026’s DeFi exploits places SwapNet in the 8th place. The attacker leveraged approval abuse and extracted $13.4M. Additionally, YieldBlox became another victim, experiencing a $10.2M loss in a collateral/oracle manipulation. Concluding the list is Saga incurred the minimum loss among top 10 DeFi exploits of 2026, accounting for $7M due to a bridge exploit.